ocd

Tony Baloney – Why you no fat no more?

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exercise.png

I’ve told you about how great it is to be a regular and how nice it is to have people remembering you, but sometimes that’s not the case at all.  

 

 

3 signs

 

There was a little bodega run by a Chinese family across from work that I used to hit up every morning on my way into the office. Being OCD and a creature of habit, I used get my healthy breakfast of two Diet Pepsi’s and an individually wrapped chocolate chip muffin every day before work. This was before I started running, before I was eating healthier, and way before I lost sixty pounds. Yes, that is a lot of weight and yes, I realize I was a fat ass…thanks for reminding me.

 

 no more mr fat guy

 

As part of my morning routine, I’d get off the train, hit the convenience store and then head to work. Every day it would feel like forever waiting on that damn line in the store, but it was right across the street and you kinda get used to it after a while. When I say it was a long line, I mean like twenty people on the line long winding throughout the store. Picture a conga line doing the mannequin challenge.

 

 ling line

 

Fast forward to the new and improved, skinny me getting bottled water and a protein bar! As I was almost at the register for my turn to pay, I made the amateur mistake of turning my head to check out the candy display and see if I should tempt myself with some delectable Swedish Fish (the only seafood that I eat). Before I knew it, the cashier was screaming out “Next. Next. Next customer. Nex…WHOA!!! WHY YOU NO FAT NO MORE!!!!!!” A hush came over the store as everyone looked to see who she was talking about. Of course I turned away from the candy and momentarily though about dropping my water and protein bar to sprint out the front door, but she waved me over to her and shouted “COME ON!” I was terrified that she’d start screaming even louder or I would have let someone else go ahead of me while she continued on just as loud. “I can’t believe you no fat no more! What happened? You so different?” she exclaimed as loudly as she possibly could. I threw money at her to try and distract her and get her to shut up but it was to no avail. I tried my best to pretend like I didn’t hear her shouting and just smiled without looking back at the line of tittering patrons waiting their turn behind me wondering just how fat I actually was since I didn’t look all that good now…A normal person would never go back into a store after that, but did I mention that it was directly across the street? I don’t care if she started shouting “Run Fat Boy Run” while throwing Ring Dings at me – the OCD wasn’t letting me break my routine for anything…

 

 Bologna 2

 

Flash forward a few months later to a very stressful, meeting-filled day, and I was in dire need of some comfort food. When life beats me down, food always makes it better so I headed over to the bodega. I know you’re thinking that’s not a healthy response to stress and that’s exactly how eating disorders start, but nobody likes a know it all! As I was searching the displays for something tasty to make everything all better, I decided that we were at defcon three and hit the deli counter for the only remedy: Bologna and cheese! It’s not something that I eat often, but it reminds me of when I was a little kid and always cheers me up. It also reminds me of a day when my sister Marlene ate almost two pounds of bologna forcing my poor little cousin to go to Sailing camp with nothing to eat for lunch. Just like Brooke Shields in the 80’s, she wasn’t one to let anything stand between her and her Boar’s Head. When questioned about her excessive Bologna intake, she defensively sneered “If you can’t feed me send me home!” Some people have happy Disney memories of their childhood, I have random Bologna fantasies: Tomato/Tomah-to.  

cant feed quote

If she knew that my sister could eat like she had two assholes, Mother Theresa might rethink this quote…

 

 

 

So, I head over to the Deli counter and asked for bologna and cheese on a roll with a tiny bit of mayonnaise. I like my sandwich to be dry and by that I mean so dry that you’ll actually start to cough. I really don’t like mayo, but a little drop here and there is OK. How is it that no one in the entire service industry is able to comprehend what the word “little” means when ordering food? I usually don’t even bother ordering mayo because people never listen and you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment. Ask for a little ice and the cup is full; ask for a “little” dressing on your salad and you’ll be calling in the Coast Guard because the lettuce starts to look like little boats drowning in the ocean.

 

 max.png

 

My friend Max was with me and mocking me as I ordered. He isn’t what you’d normally consider funny, but proceeded to ask the counter attendants if they also thought it was as ridiculous as he did that my name was Tony and I was ordering bologna. All of a sudden three guys that don’t understand 95% of the language were hysterical laughing and saying it back to each other “Tony Baloney” while pointing at me. I find it so interesting that in the English language there are so many vital and beautiful words or phrases that one can learn, but the takeaway here was “Tony Baloney!” Now a normal person would have maintained some level of dignity and got the hell out of that bodega, but I really wanted that sandwich and they were right across the street…     

 

Tony Baloney 1

 

 

In hindsight, maybe heading to the place where random cashiers shout about how fat I am isn’t the best place to make me feel better on a stressful day. No one said I was a quick learner, but I got the message now!

 

effin balogna sandwiches.png

 

 

The Perks of being Regular

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its great to be regular

 

No, this post isn’t about pooping! Come on people, not every post is about that – give me some credit will you! I’m the number one Immodium Abuser, but it seems like you’re the one focusing on Number Two. When I say being regular, I mean keeping the same routine and eating the same things…

 

OCD and you know it

 

As my wife can surely attest, my OCD has been known to get in the way every so often, but also it has helped in a few ways. For instance, when I find something that I’m able to eat, I stick to it like glue and don’t veer off path. I will eat the same thing day after day; you know I’m all for a good routine.

ocd might die

 

Saying that I’m a picky eater is kind of an understatement; I’m a downright pain in the ass. I have accepted it a long time ago and can admit it. I’m not being dramatic either – I’m annoyingly ridiculous when it comes to food. I don’t eat anything sweet, sour, spicy, ethnic, fried, battered, flavorful, tangy, zesty, poached, powdered, etc. Basically if the menu has an adjective when describing the entree – I know it’s not for me. The blander the better and I mean Senior citizen, nursing home food kind of bland.

 

white rice

 

My absolute favorite meal is white rice! Seriously – not ice cream, not pizza – white rice is my jam! Besides the fact that it’s binding (which is a gift in itself) it’s easy-to-make and it’s filling. I don’t mean that I like rice and people think “why don’t you just eat brown rice because it’s more nutritious” or wild rice because it has more flavor. No way! Plain white rice is better and I’ll tell you why: If you’re eating a bowl of white rice and you happen to look down and see something black you know immediately that it isn’t rice and you stop eating. If you’re eating brown rice or wild rice, you can’t tell if something crawled or fell into the bowl. It’s dark and crunchy but, was that a bug or a kernel of rice? If it’s white you know it’s safe to continue on. It may sound crazy, but you’ll thank me the next time you look down into your bowl and see a little black fleck trying to burrow through your warm scoop of rice…

 

polly

It’s not so much that I have a food allergy as it’s a food avoidance because I’m terrified of the consequences. For me taking Imodium before I eat anything is the equivalent of having insurance on your car. You wouldn’t drive a car without insurance would you? Same principle and remember: no one likes the guy on the train that shits his pants in a suit no matter how funny he is! Remember Along Came Polly with the Ferret? That’d be me. If you haven’t seen that movie – go get it on ITunes right now!

 

done correctly

 

I’m a creature of habit, so if I can find a place that can put up with my pain in the ass ways – I’m loyal and don’t change. As in, I’ll seriously eat there every single day loyal. At work, my friend Beena turned me on to a Chinese restaurant that was really clean and had good food. I was suspicious of her because the last time I listened to her, we went to a Chinese restaurant where they had “traditional” seating and we ended up sitting on the floor like stray dogs and we were forced to take off our shoes.

 

sitting on the floor

 

I’m not sure what was scarier: the seating arrangements on the floor, the waitress slipping while trying to serve soup to the people sitting on said floor, or of Beena’s footwear of choice for the lunch: Khaki pants short enough to showcase her white tube socks with black Michael Jacksonish looking slip-on shoes…It was a brave fashion choice: not a good choice by any means, but a brave one nonetheless.

 

Beena's shoes.JPG

 

Leary of finding a piece of cat mixed in with my grilled chicken, I was afraid to try another place she recommended, but relented after I did a drive-by to check it out. It was busy, seemed really clean, had nice soap to wash my hands in the bathroom, and an A grade in the window! I went in expecting it to be bad, but low and behold, I was blown away. Beena and Imi know how I eat, so they ordered for me and all of a sudden, the clouds parted and the sun shone down one me: All at once I had found the Cheers to my Norm! It was like a dream as Joann the waitress put down my plate with a beautiful stack of white rice scooped and sculpted ever so gently next to a perky little stack of steamed vegetables lying alongside a gloriously plain pile of grilled chicken drier and blander than my last boss’ personality! It was perfection on a plate that I had been searching eons for. I’m not sure what type of feline special Imi and Beena were eating that day because I couldn’t concentrate on anything besides my lunch; I was captivated by that entrée. I had never been a big fan of Chinese food before, but I was converted that day!

 

Me and Joann

 

One bite and I was hooked; we started going there two and three times a week. I actually took a picture of that delicious meal so I could show it to the waitress the next time in case they couldn’t tell what I wanted, but in just a matter of days the legend was born: The Tony Special. When I walk in now, it’s like a scene out of Entourage and I’m Vincent Chase – no menu necessary!!! I sit down and they all know what I want. I literally never need a menu again because it was a given what I’ll be ordering. Do you have any idea how nice that is? It’s the closest I’ll ever get to being treated like a celebrity.

 

tony special.JPG

The Famous Tony Special!

 

 

Next time, forget the perks – we’ll explore the perils of being a regular…

 

food is undercooked

 

 

BARBEC – YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!

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I'll take it medium-rare!

Just released: The newest George Foreman Grill!

 

I know this is going to sound crazy, but what’s the deal with guys and their barbecues? I get it that it’s summer and people like to eat off the grill but come on…I’m all for food on the grill once in a while, but some people think summer means grilling every single day. Good lord people – moderation. I hate the summer heat as it is so the absolute last thing I wanna do when I’m that hot is to be near an open flame. Hello – that makes no sense at all.

 

 

squirrel

 

I’d like to pause and set the record straight here before we go any further: I don’t have unnatural fears and phobias that are made up. These things come from something that has happened to you; PTSD if you will for OCD peeps like me. For example, I check the oven to make sure it’s been turned off multiple times during the day. I don’t do this because I’m crazy and irrational, I do this because my wife has left the oven on so many times and I don’t want the house to explode. When I see her mom leave the burner on the stovetop turned on after she uses it – that confirms that good looks aren’t the only thing that run in that family…Another example, I don’t eat outside or with my hands because I’m not a squirrel…Practical reasons people, such as why I won’t get close to the barbecue anymore. This is the reason I won’t barbecue anymore.

 

 

bbq gun

 

 

It was a few weeks after my oldest son was born and my wife was holding him while I went onto the deck to throw some burgers on the grill. I turned on the propane and pressed the ignition switch but nothing happened. I could smell the gas so I knew that the propane tank was open, but there was no flame in the barbecue. I looked at her with a mixed expression of half annoyance and half just-plain-dumb as to what to do. She told me to light a match and the ignition would catch. My spidey senses should have been tingling at this point, but the new-baby euphoria/tiredness had me all out of whack. I went in to the kitchen to find the matches and light this mother up cause we were hungry.

 

 

match

 

 

Neither one of us smokes, so we never have matches. It took me about five minutes to find some matches that we had been given as a favor from a wedding and I finally went back out to get this party started.

 

 

Is this a barbecue or a foosball table?

Is this a barbecue or a foosball table?

 

 

When I got back to the grill, my wife was talking to me through the screen while holding our son and I lit the match to start the barbecue. As the match ignited, all of a sudden a huge fireball erupted and flew from the match, across the barbecue, up my crotch, up my shirt and then up the hedges and up the side of the house. Once I heard the WHOOSH of the fireball, I did what every brave, manly-man does and proceeded to scream like a little girl with a lost puppy and turned to my wife for assistance of any kind and what did she do? She slammed the sliding glass doors leading into the house. At this point I was facing the glass of the sliders shouting every curseword I know when I happened to hear the laughing crowd of people behind me. All of the people outside on their decks were hysterical at how I was screaming and carrying on over the fireball. Not one of them asked if I was OK, but in case they were wondering some leg hair got singed, my eyebrows got an unexpected trim, my nose hair was all but gone and my Imodium was certainly put to the test, but no serious burns. Unless you count the humiliating pain from their laughter as I tried to turn the propane off.

 

bbq fireball 2

 

When my wife finally unlocked the sliders, I went inside to get a beer, change my underwear, and to ask why she’d close the door when I was almost shish-kabobbed on the deck. I was one second away from throwing myself over the railing and into the hedges to stop, drop, and roll before she finally let me in. Full disclosure, my only experience in this area is what I’ve learned watching Chicago Fire, but normally people offer assistance in some form of another or they call 911; they usually don’t lock the burn victim outside. Her thinking was to protect the baby, but my thinking was that once the door was shut the locking part doesn’t offer any additional protection to the person not getting hit with a fireball…

 

 

chicago fire

 

 

To be continued next time as this has just reminded me of another fire-safety themed episode/cautionary tale of two different occasions when I slept through a fire! Actually, maybe it should be an investigation of my wife because who’s around this many fires when I’m ALWAYS inside directly in harm’s way while she’s awake and safely in the street waiting for the authorities? No one would blame her but she’s either very lucky, got a severe firemen fetish, or is actually an arsonist…hmmmm…

 

 

bbq fireball

NY Post finally caught on to me…

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3609_picture_of_an_excited_woman_speeding_with_her_wheelchair

I saw this article about New York families hiring disabled people to come to Disney with them and although I am not usually a big fan of the NY Post, I got a kick out of it. I don’t pretend to think of myself as a trend-setter but come on people! I was using a wheelchair inappropriately at Disney years ago – now they catch up? How stupid am I to not realize that money was to be made on it though? I guess I should take notes because not one of these people were propelled skyward into a crowd, peed their pants or were mistaken for a retarded person yet….If you don’t remember my famous Disney story when I was mistaken for a retarted person TWICE in less than a half hour – read it here!

Here’s the article:

http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/disney-world-scheme–entitled-families-hire-disabled-guide-to-bypass-lines-194555620.html

Here’s when I was mistaken for a retarded person TWICE in less than a half hour: https://immodiumabuser.com/2011/01/11/when-i-was-mistaken-for-a-retarded-person-twice-in-less-than-a-half-hour/  If you haven’t read this – you’re in for a treat. If you have already read it – it’s worth another read…

You down with OCD, yeah you know me…my Toiletries regiminent revisited

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Anyone who knows me can tell you that I am under absolute duress to be ready for anything in any reasonable amount of time. Even more than that, I can’t even get ready in an unreasonable amount of time. Celebrities don’t take this long to prep for the Oscars – but for me to run to the supermarket is a production. I have tried things to quicken the pace, but sort of like a gentle soufflé, you cannot rush certain things.

My wife always argues with me about how long it takes me to get ready, but while she looks absolutely perfect and requires very little touch-ups from the moment she rises out of bed, when I wake up I look like one of the zombies marching in back of the float in the Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance video.

My toiletry regimen alone is a great big process in and of itself: I set my Ipod for one song and then get in the shower. It should not take longer to shower than one random song. That’s not the time-consuming part. The exception to this one-song rule is if you have fallen into the cesspool (Lance) or had a plumbing pipe full of shit (literally, full of shit) explode into your mouth and onto your chest (Hal) – At that point, take as long as you feel necessary in there and no one will say a word.

Back to the routine; I like to start at the top and then work my way down. The opening act, or my first facial scrub, is just a tingly little wake-up call and then we head straight for the follow-up nourishing face wash and immediately into the Bliss face wash after that. I then grab my two thickening shampoos (it’s sort of the same philosophy that I have with Pumpkin muffins, where if one is good – two will be much better) and wash my hair. Obviously, the shampoo is dripping down my body and I would need to scrub again after it – so it just makes sense to use the body bar after the hair is done. Moving on to my Oil of Olay Age Defying soap for certain parts of the body – though never on this gentle face with a bar soap! I actually don’t understand why anyone would choose to use a bar of soap to wash their body and then use that SAME bar to wash their face. Any bar of soap that touches my feet or cleans my balls surely isn’t going anywhere near my face!

Blue Body wash is next for the rest of my body that the soap doesn’t cover. I don’t mind scents, but I feel like it needs to be blue or it won’t fully clean me. I don’t know why blue body wash strikes me as more thorough – but I just can’t use another color. Then I dry off and get my robe and waist towel (what my wife lovingly refers to as a skirt) and put on my Birkenstocks so my clean feet won’t touch the ground. Did I forget to mention that I HATE to be barefoot and just cannot do it? Nothing gets me worked up more than that. OK, the beach does – I mean you’re sitting in dirt – It doesn’t make any sense!!!

(I actually had a mini panic attack at the airport last summer when I rushed out of the house in flip-flops not thinking and then had to go through security when I got to the airport. I almost scrapped the whole trade show that I was going to for work when they told me I had to take the flip-flops off. I asked for some napkins or paper towels so I wouldn’t have to walk on the floor – but they looked at me like I was the crazy one. Needless to say the sight of me scrubbing my feet in the men’s bathroom sink immediately after going through security didn’t go over well. Two people looked at me like I just escaped from the mental hospital and another told me that I was crazy. Screw them – people can shave in the sink and hair is everywhere, but one foot on the counter sets them off? I was balancing like Nadia Comaneci because if one of my barefoot little toes had touched that disgusting airport bathroom floor – they would have taken me out on a stretcher right into the ambulance.)

For my next act, I move straight into oral hygiene and start with my Listerine pre-rinse and floss and Q-Tips to check for wax or and then grab my Radius toothbrush to start on the choppers with my Tom’s of Maine fennel toothpaste. Don’t let them fool you, if it’s not fennel – it’s not fine. I will not use a toothbrush that isn’t Radius – it just gets the job done! If you haven’t tried it – get one right now. Your brushing will shoot right up to the next level and you’ll be thanking me for it for years to come. The zesty tingle after a good brushing just starts me on the right path and keeps me going all day.

If you were just thinking that I was finished and ready to leave the bathroom, you would be mistaken. The next stop on the OCD Express is my eye serum for the bags under my eyes (regular face creams are just not gentle enough for this area) then we move on to the T-Zone cream (for the nose and forehead) which tends to be an oilier area so you have to use a product of a different consistency and then I finish up with my gentle SPF Facial cream for the chin, cheeks, and neck area.

I hit the Styling Paste to spruce up this thin crow’s nest I’m calling my hair these days, and then an extra healthy spot of Rogaine Foam. Rogaine is the only one of my toiletries I have a heavy hand with – you never know. I now head for the brush to get my hair under control and give it a “look.” With my hair, I try to go for the “messy, cover-up” look to make it look thicker, but it usually just comes across as the “desperate, comb-over” look.

We haven’t even gotten to the deodorant (Spray? No way!) and cologne yet. Lately, I have been going back and forth between Tiffany for Men and Diesel. I’m actually a little scared of using the Diesel at full force with more than one squirt – so I go very sparingly. It says right there on the bottle in big letters to “Use with Caution” and I take that warning very seriously. Seriously, the last thing I need is to go waltzing into work after one too many squirts of Diesel and set that little minx in Accounting off into a Diesel infused stupor. Instead of her flirting with the Subway guy at lunch like she usually does, she’ll be trying to steal the pickle off my McRib sandwich! That’s the power of Diesel!

I grab the tweezers for a quick little maintenance check and to make sure there is no hair trying to escape out of my nostrils or ears. There is absolutely nothing more offensive or careless than nose hair. There’s just no excuse for it. Why don’t we use this as the general rule of thumb for nose hair from now on: If you can grab it and twirl it or if small children can jump rope with it – there’s a problem. If your nose hair is long enough to floss your teeth with – stay the hell home and trim it!

If this is you – by all means trim that!

One last check in the mirror for the once over and then I am ready to leave the bathroom and pick out clothes to wear. I did leave out one minor detail which doesn’t help my time spent in the bathroom: I have to do all of these things a certain number of times and simply cannot veer off of that. If I don’t brush my teeth forty-five times – I need to start over. If I don’t rub the Rogaine on my head into a circle seventy-five times – I need to start over. Also, if I go out of order in my routine in any way, I need to start over. That’s not a joke either – I don’t think of it as compulsive, I think of it as thorough. I will literally get back in the shower and start over.

If this sounds excessive or crazy, just imagine that I shower multiple (3 – 5) times a day. When I wake up (obviously), every time I take a shit, if it’s summer and I’m sweaty – add at least two more showers that day, before I got to the gym, when I get back from the gym…It’s actually a good thing that I’m overweight and have decided to cut out my time at the gym so I don’t risk a heart attack or I would have to get up even earlier than I already do to take another shower.

This doesn’t even take into consideration me wearing gloves to sleep in after I apply the hand cream. Since I wash my hands so much, I constantly have really dry hands. They’re so dry that when I shake hands with someone, they wince in pain because my paws feel like sandpaper. Add my blinders that I can’t sleep without and you can imagine how much my wife enjoys co-habitating with me.

If you didn’t feel bad for my wife before this – I’m sure you have now joined the growing crowd that does. I actually used to feel really bad for her too because she is so patient, but then one day I stopped. The day that I stopped feeling bad was the day that her and her crazy sister actually jumped me in their mother’s basement to try to “Cure me” of my OCD. They had seen a documentary where this lady got a vacuum cleaner dumped on her head while she was duct taped to a chair and they got inspired. She sat there crying her eyes out and the light bulb went off above their heads.

When I say that they jumped me, I actually mean that they jumped on top of me and threw me to the ground while the two of them tried to remove their shoes and put their bare feet on my face. Their fucking bare feet on my face! Who they thought that would help, I certainly don’t know, but I went all Wu Tang on them like I was back on the streets. OK, I was never actually on the streets and there are grade School kids tougher than me, but at that moment – I imagined myself a gang member or as the epitome of strength and courage: Chuck Norris.

At this point in the game when two crazy bitches get all up in your grill like that – the “don’t hit a girl” rules fail to apply. I was all Chris Brown throwing punches left and right at those girls. Luckily for them I have as much coordination as a newborn kitten and I punch like a five-year old girl, so I was mostly hitting myself. I was screaming for help to old lady Ann that lived next door but to no avail. I was bobbing and weaving like Muhammad Ali and was finally able to get away and run up the stairs to freedom (and another shower.) Yep – they knocked me to that basement floor and there was no way that I wasn’t going to need a shower.

I grew up in a house with a crazy kamikaze sister who would turn into the flying Whoozini and attack out of nowhere and now here I was married to another ninja attacker and her crazy wombat sidekick. Needless to say, it’s been years since that happened, but I still never turn my back on either sister at family functions for fear of a repeat performance. Sometimes life just isn’t fair!

If you’re laughing at this, my wife probably isn’t – Part One

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I know that it might seem hard to believe given some of the foolishness I have taken part in, but whenever I start to second-guess my mental stability I’m reminded of a very comforting thought: I may be off the wall, but my wife willingly chose this. Who’s really the nutty one, you might ask? She’s calm, cool, collected and most importantly, not crazy. While I’m way out there, she’s at the normal end of the spectrum and it gives us a nice balance.

My wife’s a High School Guidance Counselor and understands the inner workings of fragile minds – thus the attraction to me…At first thought, one would think that I was an independent study or possibly an internship for her Master’s Program. Hell, I’m so wacked out – she should have enough credits for her doctorate by now.

My OCD Rituals, superstitions, neurosis, positive energy crystal worshipping, endless supply of toiletries and taking handfuls of Imodium at every turn might come off as amusing to some people, but not if that was your life 24/7. Every time someone meets my wife and says “He’s so funny” I can see the look on her face and hear it before she even opens her mouth and says the inevitable “you don’t live with him.” I don’t want to make it like she’s a saint here, because Homegirl has gotten a little Cray Cray at times too – but compared to me, she can’t help but come across as the normal one.

As I go through my days, I constantly try and find ways to make her laugh, because there is nothing more infectious than her laughter…usually I can get her to smile and a snicker here and there, but I’ll tell you a few things that she most certainly DID NOT find funny:

When she was pregnant with our first son and I took her to the midwife’s office for a check-up. While she was half undressed because she was changing into the gown for her examination, I shot past her and hopped up onto the exam table. I forced her to take a picture of me in the stirrups so I could text it to my brother-in-law while she looked at me in amazement/disgust. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best timing for my photo shoot; it should have been all about her and the baby (and it really was) but I just couldn’t resist. Like a dog dry humping a still leg, I just couldn’t help myself. Her rolling eyes reminded me that it was blackmail evidence and I maybe should have used my phone instead of hers for the picture. Also, it’s probably best not to push a pregnant woman out of the way while racing to see who can get up in the stirrups first…but lesson learned.

“Smile and Say Cheese…”

I don’t fully understand why, but guess who was annoyed when I Skype-recorded a fart so I could play it back and listen to myself…No further explanation necessary: farts are funny and come on, don’t try and pretend that you haven’t done it too. Isn’t that what Steve jobs had in mind for the Ipad all along? You can get a fart scented candle, but you shouldn’t record your own? Something is wrong with that kind of thinking. Is it OK to wire tap someone else farting? I know you can’t record other conversations, but where is the line on the recording of farts? These are the real questions people should be looking for clarity from our public officials this Election Day.


Do I even need to bring up the Rosie O’Donnell incident
again?  Now that was something she certainly didn’t find amusing then and she still doesn’t now…

Tune in next time as I go over some more of my shenanigans at my wife’s family weddings and holidays…Nothing brings out the full-on crazy like a wedding or holiday celebration. The hits just keep coming and every great once in a while, I can get her to laugh along at the craziness too…

Rock you like a Hurricane!!!

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Some people think that Sandy is a Bitch, but I’ve always thought she was pretty nice…

True Story, ABC news just announced that due to Hurricane Sandy’s impact on our region, roads are closed, trees are down and they’re anticipating extended power outages. The Governor is insisting that everyone impacted stay home and immediately log onto immodiumabuser.com to catch up on the posts you might have missed. Now I am not one to argue with ABC news, so get the site up and running before the lights go out!

If you think Hurricane Sandy is causing havoc and inconveniencing you now, think back to what Hurricane Gloria did to me when I was younger. Some emotional scares heal with time, but not for me – I still shudder at the thoughts of it. We have a long history of storms and hurricanes that impact us – such as Hurricane Irene last year.  That was a bitch of a storm and you might have had some damage and inconvenience, but that storm literally popped my son right out of my wife! I am not even kidding here– he popped right out …She was nine months pregnant and we were at the start of our ten day powerless existence from the hurricane’s wrath when her water broke. Of course I didn’t believe her since I never believe anything and always think people are kidding with me Why she would joke about going into labor during a hurricane while we were sitting in the dark because we had no power is anyone’s guess, but I really thought she might be kidding. When I finally did catch on that she wasn’t joking around, I was just grateful that she wasn’t sitting on the couch when that water broke…I don’t know exactly what’s all up in that mix but I certainly don’t want it on the couch.

 

If only I would have prepared the car in advance…

As we were trying to leave the house, I was putting garbage bags down on my seats so my wife could get into the car. She looked at me like I had two heads and tried to take them off the seats. “Oh no you don’t – I don’t know what’s leaking out of there so you’re not sitting on a cloth seat…that shit’ll stain!” This apparently wasn’t a time to indulge my OCD neurotic behavior, but come on – I’d have to trade the car in if the seat got ruined. I know that might sound mean, but come on – what am I gonna tell the valet parking guy? Don’t mind that stinky stain on the seat there… It’s not like you can bring it to the car wash and ask if afterbirth comes out easily. I’m not usually insecure about size, but I just knew that my Tide togo stick wasn’t that big. I sometimes have clients in my car and how would I explain that placenta-cocktail smell on the seat as I try to win their business? She was being unreasonable and wouldn’t sit on the garbage bags, so I tried to put the back seats down flat and lay cardboard over them if that was more comfortable. She was in no joking mood, ignored my protests and then she got in the front seat. I said a novena and did a quick glance to make sure my febreeze was still in the back seat – just in case.

The midwives don’t take you in until you’re in active labor so we were back and forth in the Hurricane as it progressed. On one trip, she almost lost it…”I’m gonna throw up, Oh my God, I’m gonna throw up.” “Not in this car Sister!” I jammed the wheeled all the way and slammed the brakes right onto some one’s front lawn and ran around her side of the car to let her out. She was like a volcano ready to erupt and I needed her out of my car pronto. No sooner had she opened her door when she exploded and started throwing up all over. The wind was blowing wildly, branches were snapping all around us, she was hunched over in this random front yard vomiting for all she was worth and then I remembered and asked: “Should I take a picture of this? Will this be funny later on?” Her head spun around and she just got out the word “NOOOOOOOOO!” before she started with more projectile vomiting….I felt like Max von Sydow in The Exorcist and had to step back and turn away before I got hit. It’s been over a year and you know what? She still doesn’t think it’s funny.

 

My wife actually has shorter hair now.

That might have been worthy of a chuckle or two when she calmed down if the woman that owned the house hadn’t been banging on the front window wondering what the hell we were doing out there…I tried to reassure her that we were not just some lunatics out in a hurricane “It’s OK, she’s in labor…She’s having a baby…” I tried to tell her as my poor wife expelled even more of her guts out but she couldn’t seem to hear me over the gale force winds whooshing by. It was like something out of a bad movie.

 

When her tank was finally empty, I put her back in the car and then almost threw up from the smell as I got back in. Apparently, some of the vomit got on her feet when she was hunched over. I tried to hand her two Dunkin Donuts napkins and she almost punched me in the face. “What are two Effin Dunkin Donuts Napkins gonna do?” So much for me being considerate. I rolled all the windows down and had to drive like Ace Ventura with my head out the window in order to breathe. She asked me to roll up the windows because she was cold and I tried to pretend I couldn’t hear her at first. I did put the heat on for her because there was just no way that I could possibly drive with the windows closed and that smell trapped in there. It was like a cross between Cool Ranch Doritos and a decaying body. I know that I don’t come across well in some of these posts and I accept that. I am not good in a crisis and have been proven to be ineffective at the mere hint of a gagging throat, but my wife is a champ. Everything turned out well, our son was healthy, and my wife proved once again why she is such a superstar!

Some of you getting hit by Sandy right now might be inconvenienced because you’re without electricity and thinking no one could have it worse. Before you complain, think of my poor wife spewing her guts out on someone’s front lawn in gale force winds just mere minutes before giving birth to a beautiful baby boy. Did I forget to mention that she also labored and gave birth all naturally, without any drugs? Guess your storm experience isn’t so bad now, is it?

 

 

When I was mistaken for a retarded person TWICE in less than a half hour!!!

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I won’t bury the lead and make you work for it: I was actually mistaken for a retarded person TWICE in less than a half hour. Breathe that in for a second and chew on it. Now that it’s out of the way, here goes. It was Spring Break so I headed to Disney World with my aunt and two cousins and of course, chaos ensued. I will bypass the long drive from New York to Florida and that whole crazy situation entirely because no one wants to hear about a Passover Seder gone wrong, a diet saboteur, dog vomit in the car or a highway flashing anyway; let’s head right to the good stuff.

 

After we checked into our hotel, we decided to hit the water to lounge around and relax. I should clarify this and say that they wanted to hit the water and I wanted to hit the bar to lounge around and relax. I hate the outdoors and I HATE the heat so I was not in my element. After a few drinks in the shade, they convinced me to go in the water. I hadn’t unpacked so my cousin went into the gift shop to get sunscreen for me since I was absolutely not going anywhere near the water without it. Of course, me sending a boy to do a man’s work bit me in the ass because he got the wrong sunscreen.

 

I’m OCD and I cannot touch anything with my fingertips, so I can’t put on my own sunscreen. I usually get a spray bottle, but he got a regular bottle that you have to rub on. I had to have my aunt put the sunscreen on me and then I went into the water with them. Needless to say, I should have gone to my room and got my own sunscreen because the one he got wasn’t a high SPF nor was it waterproof. As a stupid ass is prone to do, I proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon getting sun poisoning on parts of my face, back, neck, stomach, arms and legs. I say parts of my body, but it was more like sporadic streaks of sun poisoning where the sunscreen had washed off. I easily could have passed for an albino ET with patches of psoriasis. It looked like my normally lily-white pasty complexion had been assaulted by a bus full of preschoolers holding red crayons.

Now do you see how important Sunscreen is?

 

The next day, we hit the parks like a tornado – rushing through to make sure we could go on everything multiple times. Maybe it was the youthful energy of me in my twenties, or maybe it was the delirious nature of sun poisoning, but we were literally running from one ride to the next. Because of my sun poisoned state, I had to wear a big T-Shirt, khaki shorts because they were loose on me, and flip flops because my poor battered skin couldn’t bear anything too constricting.

 

Everything at the park had such long lines to get on and it was getting very frustrating until it hit me – we need a wheelchair! (Keep in mind that you can’t do this nowadays, and I am probably the reason, but back the, this trick worked.) I got a wheelchair, put my aunt in it, she pretended that she was handicapped and we sped right up to the front of every line we got on. People were literally forcing us to the front of the line because they felt bad for us. They didn’t think someone in a wheelchair should have to wait on line and I must say that I actually agreed with them. My two cousins are goody goody’s and felt very hesitant about the wheelchair and the faking until we left them at the back of the line and went on Pirates of the Caribbean ride without them. They met up with us over an hour later (meanwhile, we had been on two other rides and got a churro while they were still on that line for Pirates) and after that, they didn’t leave our sides.

 

My aunt and I took turns in the wheelchair and, in all honesty, I must say that she was really much better at it than me. She was a little over the top sometimes with her facial expressions, grunts, and hand tremors, but it played well. We spent the afternoon shooting through each and every line like we were royalty and it truly was like the park was there just for us. Need a table to eat lunch at? People cleared out of our way for us. Want a good spot to watch the parade? The crowd parted like the Red Sea for us. It was great – until, as it is want to do – karma came and bit me in the ass.

 

It was getting late and the park was closing. Everyone was heading out and I’m not sure if you’ve ever been in Disney World when it’s closing, but it’s like a madhouse getting out of there. For some reason I didn’t fully flesh out in my mind at the time, I thought that we could make it to Space Mountain one more time before they closed. My aunt was in the wheelchair, my cousins were walking on each side of it, and I was pushing her and I just knew in my heart of hearts that we could make it. We had to get there fast if we wanted to make it, so I just started to run like Forrest Gump. Not knowing what else to do, my aunt held on for dear life in the wheelchair and my cousins started running along-side as we made our way. The ground started to slope down a little, but it wasn’t a huge incline so I didn’t really pay that much attention to it.

My aunt leaned back in the chair to say something over her shoulder to me and what I heard was “Go faster – speed up” when, in actuality, what she said was “You Bastard, there’s a curb!” What happened next went by so fast and happened in such a quick instant, yet what I saw felt like it was happening in slow motion and was absolutely the funniest thing that I have ever bore witness to in my life still to this day!!!

 

As I was running full steam not paying attention to anything ahead of us, the wheelchair ran right into a curb and there was a thud of impact just as my aunt was thrown forward from the chair and into the heaving crowd all the while screaming at the top of her lungs. With that scream – the world stood still – and people everywhere froze in an instant. My cousins scattered like mice to get away from us and the scene we were causing. Right on that curb was a vendor holding a huge jug of glow in the dark light sticks that bend and interlock into necklaces and he was right in my aunt’s trajectory.

 

As her now airborne body was thrust forward and she started screaming, his face froze with fear and he threw the bucket of light sticks into the air and reached out to try and catch her – shocked that a paralyzed woman was being thrown from her wheelchair right into his arms. Imagine his shocked look when she landed on her feet and ran off into the crowd because she was embarrassed as I was screaming “It’s a miracle, she can walk.” I then fell to the ground in a heap next to the overturned wheelchair with its wheels still spinning, hysterically laughing with absolutely no control of my body and peed my pants right there. Yes, as a twenty-three year old man, I am not embarrassed to tell you that I peed my pants at Disney World!

 

As I lie there on the ground, tears of laughter running down my face, unable to fully process what just happened because I couldn’t regain control of myself; there were a ton of people in the crowd staring – not quite sure what to make of me or what to do when I heard it. That one voice in the crowd that just rose right above the others somehow: “Oh my God – that retarded boy just fell out of his wheelchair and he’s crying!” and with that I peed my pants for the second time!!! Yes, as a twenty-three year old man, I am not embarrassed to tell you that I peed my pants at Disney World TWICE! I was laughing and crying at the same time while rolling around on the pavement I just peed on – twice – and muttering “She thinks I’m retarded…She thinks I’m retarded…” and just could not regain control of myself.

 

Imagine if you will the memory that I have and am sharing with you – now picture the memory those people who witnessed this must have went home and recalled. I couldn’t stop heaving and laughing and for the life of me just could not get off the ground. When I finally did, there were still a ton of people around trying to help me, but not one of them was my aunt or my cousins. I tried to compose myself and stop laughing, but I just couldn’t. I was pushing through the crowd trying to find them all the while still laughing with tears streaming down my face. I couldn’t even look back on the carnage I had just left because the vendor who threw the light sticks when he tried to catch my aunt was now down on all fours cursing us as he tried to sift through the trampling crowd around him and pick up that scattered mess. If I were able to speak coherently at that moment in time, I might have tried to offered him an apology, but finding a men’s room seemed like a smarter course of action.

 

I thought that since I was wearing soaked khaki shorts and you could tell that I had just peed my pants twice, it might be better to take off my shirt and tuck it into my shorts to hide the wet spot and head for the monorail. (We were staying in the Contemporary hotel and you had to take the monorail to get back to the hotel.)

 

As I walked by, I was trying to control the laughter and the tears, but people were literally parting the aisles to let me pass so as not get anywhere close to me. I guess if I saw a guy passing by that smelled like piss and was crying as he walked by – I wouldn’t get too close either. I could see my family standing on line as the monorail was pulling up and once they spotted me, one look said it all: I was a mess they wanted no part of.

They proceeded to board and get on the monorail hoping I would miss the one they boarded and be forced to take the next one. I was the last person on and tried to shimmy over to where they were when I just gave up and sat down alone – still laughing to myself. That’s when I looked up and saw myself in the mirror and almost died. When I took my shirt off and tucked it into my shorts to “hide the wet spot” from peeing my pants, I wasn’t even thinking of the sun poisoning. I had completely forgotten all about it. Here I was with my pasty white/sun poisoning streaks all over my body like a zebra with blood red enflamed racing stripes and I was laughing hysterically (by myself mind you) when I heard that voice. An elderly lady gasped at the sight of me and said to her husband for the whole car to hear “Is that retarded boy on the monorail all alone? Do you think he’s alright?” and that was it for me.

 

Thankfully, I didn’t pee my pants for a third time, but I did collapse into a heap of laughter and if there were any fluids left in my body – I surely would have peed them out right there. My aunt later told me that it felt like the longest monorail ride in the history of Disney and there was not a sound except for my hysterical laughter and the people that were whispering to each other and pointing at me. They were afraid to laugh because they didn’t want anyone to know they were with me but people staring really thought that there was something wrong with me.

 

There are times when we laugh at other people and there are times when they laugh at us, but that day was absolutely one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed in my life so I don’t care how many people laughed at me. Granted, I was humiliated and publicly peed my pants twice so they did have a really good reason for laughing. Also, I made a scene in Disney of all places and an enemy for life of that poor light stick guy, but until the day that I die it will be one of the funniest memories I have.

 

For some odd reason, my wife still refuses to ever go to Disney World with me. Come on, it’s been years, what are the odds I’d pee my pants again? She also says that you shouldn’t say the word retarded – you should say M.R. but no one in that crowd or on that monorail was confusing me with a Mr. – They actually thought I was retarded. I’m not sure how that should make me feel being mistaken for a retarded person twice, but I guess that if I was walking by and saw an adult man on the ground lying next to a wheelchair while rolling around in the fetal position with tears streaming down his face and he was having fits of hysterical laughter and then literally peeing his pants, I might assume that something was wrong too.

Rhianna says “Please Don’t Stop the Music” – yet proceeds to kill my IPOD

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I constantly chastise my wife because she leaves tissues or loose change or dollar bills scrunched up in the pockets of her clothing all the time; she never checks them before putting them into the laundry basket. I know, I know, it could be worse – I could have a wife that hits me or has bad hair or runs up credit card debt, but this is serious. Every time that she does it, I take it as an opportunity to get on my soapbox and tell her how it is irresponsible and that she needs to check each and every time. “It’s not that hard to check the pockets” I’m prone to saying. I don’t feel good while doing this to her, but I hate, hate, hate, to have torn up tissues mixed in with the clothes. It gets all over and annoys me to no end. Or worse than that is if I stick my hand into her pants pocket to check and grab a disgusting snot rag – GROSS and that is exactly how my last fist fight started.  I don’t bring this up to rat her out or make her feel bad; I bring this up because what goes around came around for me.  Don’t tell her, but I accidentally left my IPOD in the pocket of my bathrobe and put it through the Washer AND the Dryer which destroyed it.  

I keep my IPOD set up in the bathroom with speakers.  I need it there in order to time myself when I shower so that I will know how long to stay in there. It regulates me and keeps me on track. Some might say that it is enabling my compulsions and rituals (yes – I’m talking to you Turtle Lady!) She thinks that I need to evict it from the bathroom immediately, but how else will I know how long my son should be in the bath if I don’t play the specific number of songs? Don’t even waste your time trying to understand my cleanliness rituals – they will just confuse, frustrate, and annoy you. 

My IPOD died in vain folks. It all happened because I had gotten some new music on ITunes and Damn you Rhianna! You asked me to make you feel like you’re The Only Girl in the World and you had to make that song so God Damn catchy, Didn’t you! I’m dancing around like a fool and can’t get that song out of my head and my poor innocent IPOD paid the price for it. I took my shower, finished my routine, and put the IPOD into my bathrobe pocket so that I could go downstairs to my office and download that song onto my IPOD. Unfortunately, as I’m often prone to do – I got distracted with my usual nonsense and forgot that it was in my pocket. I removed my robe, got dressed, threw it into the hamper to wash and the rest is history.

As a rule, I never check the pockets in my clothes because I never need to. I always empty my pockets when I take off my clothes. Multiple times. I am a neurotic individual who has to do things many times in a row so you know that I always check the pockets again and again in case I left my keys or the winning Powerball ticket in there. My wife never checks her pockets, so I always make sure to check hers again and again. (Once again with the multiples.) I got paid back in spades for lecturing her over and over when I threw my bathrobe into the washing machine. One can debate the frequency with which I clean said bathrobe and how if I didn’t wash it as much this might not have happened – but it’s easier for me to blame Rhianna on this one.          

As I opened the dryer door, there it was. My poor little green Nano looking up at me helpless and wondering why…just…why…I immediately picked it up and started blowing into the bottom of it to see if I could dry it off in some way – but nothing. (It’s funny because I would never attempt CPR on a human because of my fear of other people’s filthy mouths, bad breath, and, most of all I‘m lazy – but an electric music device brings out the hero in me.) Of course I was cursing myself profusely and being reminded of how stupid I really am to have done that, but I was still hoping above all hope that it just might flicker on. I cradled that poor mint-colored baby and spoke gently with encouraging words, hoping for some miracle resuscitation like when Jack and Kate found Charlie and brought him back to life after Ethan had hung him in those vines on Lost. (Another time that beloved saga made me tear up like a little school girl that missed the bus– don’t even get me started about when Jin and Sun died together on that sub in Season Six because I’m still not over that!)

I then realized what an idiot I must look like trying to give CPR to my dead IPOD on the laundry room counter. Imagine the looks I would get if my wife walked in on me shouting into that dead IPOD’s face “Whitney , come on Whitney – are you still in there Baby?” I really felt like – all of a sudden –  Ms. Houston was gonna just flash on that display screen and maybe I was hallucinating, but I could almost swear that she looked me in the eyes and purred softly “Didn’t we almost have it all…”

Needless to say, my shower the next morning was not OK and I was all out of whack. I did not pass go and went immediately to Best Buy to get a replacement at lunchtime. (This is a big deal for me to admit because me and Best Buy have a long and sordid, love/hate relationship dating back to a certain incident a few years ago that I still cannot talk about without getting irate. Long story short, it had to do with a McDonald’s Monopoly game piece and a piss-poor online ordering experience which led to me to their hotline screaming and threatening to call Ask Asa! The operator finally shut me up and got me off the phone when I told her that I had their address and I was on my way over to the call center. It wasn’t true, but she didn’t know that and credited me back to get me off the phone.) I left Best Buy without incident (this time) with my new IPOD in hand and all was right with my shower today.

Lesson learned here: If Rhianna ever tries to Disturbia my bathroom routine again, that bitch is off my IPOD and out of my shower forever!!! And little green nano in whatever dump site you end up at – “Call me Rude Boy” but I had to get a new model…I had to go on. I really wanted to be like Rose telling Jack in the end of Titanic: “I’ll never let go Jack” but your name wasn’t Jack and I needs me some music for my shower…

AS A POSTSCRIPT TO THIS POST:
I asked my wife to read this and see what she thought of it before I posted it. As she was reading it, she looked over at me, laughed to herself, then looked back at the laptop screen, and then she looked back at me and laughed again. I was thinking how clever she must have thought I was with my Rhianna Song title play-on-words in the post, but no – she wasn’t laughing at that. She proceeded to then reach into her front pants pocket and pull out my Banana Republic Credit Card! She looked up at me and said “Oh, that reminds me…I forgot to give you this back after I ordered that stuff…” I rest my case people!

From OCD to TKO in a Heartbeat

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Anyone who knows me can tell you that I am under absolute duress to be ready for anything in any reasonable amount of time. Even more than that, I can’t even get ready in an unreasonable amount of time. Celebrities don’t take this long to prep for the Oscars – but for me to run to the supermarket is a production. I have tried things to quicken the pace, but sort of like a gentle soufflé, you cannot rush certain things.

My wife always argues with me about how long it takes me to get ready, but while she looks absolutely perfect and requires very little touch-ups from the moment she rises out of bed, when I wake up I look like one of the zombies marching in back of the float in the Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance video.

My toiletry regimen alone is a great big process in and of itself: I set my Ipod for one song and then get in the shower. It should not take longer to shower than one random song. That’s not the time-consuming part. The exception to this one-song rule is if you have fallen into the cesspool (Lance) or had a plumbing pipe full of shit (literally, full of shit) explode into your mouth and onto your chest (Hal) – At that point, take as long as you feel necessary in there and no one will say a word.

Back to the routine; I like to start at the top and then work my way down. The opening act, or my first facial scrub, is just a tingly little wake-up call and then we head straight for the follow-up nourishing face wash and immediately into the Bliss face wash after that. I then grab my two thickening shampoos (it’s sort of the same philosophy that I have with Pumpkin muffins, where if one is good – two will be much better) and wash my hair. Obviously, the shampoo is dripping down my body and I would need to scrub again after it – so it just makes sense to use the body bar after the hair is done. Moving on to my Oil of Olay Age Defying soap for certain parts of the body – though never on this gentle face with a bar soap! I actually don’t understand why anyone would choose to use a bar of soap to wash their body and then use that SAME bar to wash their face. Any bar of soap that touches my feet or cleans my balls sure as fuck isn’t going anywhere near my face!

Blue Body wash is next for the rest of my body that the soap doesn’t cover. I don’t mind scents, but I feel like it needs to be blue or it won’t fully clean me. I don’t know why blue body wash strikes me as more thorough – but I just can’t use another color. Then I dry off and get my robe and waist towel (what my wife lovingly refers to as a skirt) and put on my Birkenstocks so my clean feet won’t touch the ground. Did I forget to mention that I HATE to be barefoot and just cannot do it? Nothing gets me worked up more than that. OK, the beach does – I mean you’re sitting in dirt – It doesn’t make any sense!!! (I actually had a mini panic attack at the airport last summer when I rushed out of the house in flip-flops not thinking and then had to go through security when I got to the airport. I almost scrapped the whole trade show that I was going to for work when they told me I had to take the flip-flops off. I asked for some napkins or paper towels so I wouldn’t have to walk on the floor – but they looked at me like I was the crazy one. Needless to say the sight of me scrubbing my feet in the men’s bathroom sink immediately after going through security didn’t go over well. Two people looked at me like I just escaped from the mental hospital and another told me that I was crazy. Fuck them – people can shave in the sink and hair is everywhere, but one foot on the counter sets them off? I was balancing like Nadia Comaneci because if one of my barefoot little toes had touched that disgusting airport bathroom floor – they would have taken me out on a stretcher right into the ambulance.)

For my next act, I move straight into oral hygiene and start with my Listerine pre-rinse and floss and Q-Tips to check for wax or and then grab my Radius toothbrush to start on the choppers with my Tom’s of Maine fennel toothpaste. Don’t let them fool you, if it’s not fennel – it’s not fine. I will not use a toothbrush that isn’t Radius – it just gets the job done! If you haven’t tried it – get one right now. Your brushing will shoot right up to the next level and you’ll be thanking me for it for years to come. The zesty tingle after a good brushing just starts me on the right path and keeps me going all day.  

If you were just thinking that I was finished and ready to leave the bathroom, you would be mistaken. The next stop on the OCD Express is my eye serum for the bags under my eyes (regular face creams are just not gentle enough for this area) then we move on to the T-Zone cream (for the nose and forehead) which tends to be an oilier area so you have to use a product of a different consistency and then I finish up with my gentle SPF Facial cream for the chin, cheeks, and neck area.

I hit the Styling Paste to spruce up this thin crow’s nest I’m calling my hair these days, and then an extra healthy spot of Rogaine Foam. Rogaine is the only one of my toiletries I have a heavy hand with – you never know. I now head for the brush to get my hair under control and give it a “look.” With my hair, I try to go for the “messy, cover-up” look to make it look thicker, but it usually just comes across as the “desperate, comb-over” look.  

We haven’t even gotten to the deodorant (Spray? No way!) and cologne yet. Lately, I have been going back and forth between Tiffany for Men and Diesel. I’m actually a little scared of using the Diesel at full force with more than one squirt – so I go very sparingly. It says right there on the bottle in big letters to “Use with Caution” and I take that warning very seriously. Seriously, the last thing I need is to go waltzing into work after one too many squirts of Diesel and set that little minx in Accounting off into a Diesel infused stupor. Instead of her flirting with the Subway guy at lunch like she usually does, she’ll be trying to steal the pickle off my McRib sandwich! That’s the power of Diesel!

I grab the tweezers for a quick little maintenance check and to make sure there is no hair trying to escape out of my nostrils or ears. There is absolutely nothing more offensive or careless than nose hair. There’s just no excuse for it. Why don’t we use this as the general rule of thumb for nose hair from now on: If you can grab it and twirl it or if small children can jump rope with it – there’s a problem. If your nose hair is long enough to floss your teeth with – stay the fuck home and trim it! 

One last check in the mirror for the once over and then I am ready to leave the bathroom and pick out clothes to wear. I did leave out one minor detail which doesn’t help my time spent in the bathroom: I have to do all of these things a certain number of times and simply cannot veer off of that. If I don’t brush my teeth forty-five times – I need to start over. If I don’t rub the Rogaine on my head into a circle seventy-five times – I need to start over. Also, if I go out of order in my routine in any way, I need to start over. That’s not a joke either – I don’t think of it as compulsive, I think of it as thorough. I will literally get back in the shower and start over.

If this sounds excessive or crazy, just imagine that I shower multiple (3 – 5) times a day. When I wake up (obviously), every time I take a shit, if it’s summer and I’m sweaty – add at least two more showers that day, before I got to the gym, when I get back from the gym…it’s actually a good thing that I’m overweight and have decided to cut out my time at the gym so I don’t risk a heart attack or I would have to get up even earlier than I already do to take another shower.

If you didn’t feel bad for my wife before this – I’m sure you have now joined the growing crowd that does. I actually used to feel really bad for her too because she is so patient, but then one day I stopped. The day that I stopped feeling bad was the day that her and her crazy sister actually jumped me in their mother’s basement to try to “Cure me” of my OCD. They had seen a documentary where this lady got a vacuum cleaner dumped on her head while she was duct taped to a chair and they got inspired. She sat there crying her eyes out and the light bulb went off above their heads.

When I say that they jumped me, I actually mean that they jumped on top of me and threw me to the ground while the two of them tried to remove their shoes and put their bare feet on my face. Their fucking bare feet on my face! Who they thought that would help, I certainly don’t know, but I went all Wu Tang on them like I was back on the streets. OK, I was never actually on the streets and there are grade School kids tougher than me, but at that moment – I imagined myself a gang member or as the epitome of strength and courage: Chuck Norris.

At this point in the game when two crazy bitches get all up in your grill like that – the “don’t hit a girl” rules fail to apply. I was all Chris Brown throwing punches left and right at those girls. Luckily for them I have as much coordination as a newborn kitten and I punch like a five-year old girl, so I was mostly hitting myself. I was screaming for help to old lady Ann that lived next door but to no avail. I was bobbing and weaving like Muhammad Ali and was finally able to get away and run up the stairs to freedom (and another shower.) Yep – they knocked me to that basement floor and there was no way that I wasn’t going to need a shower.

I grew up in a house with a crazy kamikaze sister who would turn into the flying Whoozini and attack out of nowhere and now here I was married to another ninja attacker and her crazy wombat sidekick. Needless to say, it’s been years since that happened, but I still never turn my back on either sister at family functions for fear of a repeat performance. Sometimes life just isn’t fair!

Like I’ve heard so many times before “Wow, That’s a long one!”

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“Are you ready?…” I could hear her as she stomped into the building and headed up the front staircase to our second floor apartment like Godzilla rolling through Tokyo. “Why is this door locked?…Let me in!…I know you’re in there…Can you hear me?…Come on,  we need to leave – Oh my God – are you still sleeping? Get up; we’re going to be late! Don’t do this to me. Open this door right now!!…Do I need to kick it in again!!! Don’t piss me off…”

That’s exactly how I was rudely woken up by my friend Weezie screaming and kicking at the front door of my apartment. Both of my roommates went to Albany for the weekend so there was no one else to let her in. I tried my best to ignore her, but she was relentless. “Get up, its 4:45 and you know it starts at 5 O’ Clock!” she implored.

I slowly peeled off my Navy Blue Tempur blinders and tried to steady myself. (Don’t you dare roll your eyes at me – those blinders are so comfortable and so soft that it’s actually as if you took your head and shoved it right up a sheep’s ass – seriously, they’re that soft!) As I tried to get my bearings, I knew that I should be in my own bedroom and should be sleeping in my own bed, but nothing seemed familiar at all. It felt like I had been turned upside down and was looking straight into a hall of mirrors. I knew that I should just lie back down and ignore her, but the truth is that she really would have kicked that door in again if I didn’t get up. Ignoring her would only lead to an assault!

“I’m coming” I groaned as I slowly lifted myself out of bed “Stop screaming before I smack you again.”

“Try it Bitch, and you’ll see what happens” she growled through the door.

I don’t think I can accurately describe my friend Weezie. She’s the type of person who feels that it’s more important to scream every word as opposed to speaking like a normal human being. I thought I had gotten used to it after five years, but when you’re hung over and the equilibrium is far from steady, being anywhere near Weezie is never the right choice. She was one of the toughest players on the girls Rugby team, but she was freaking hysterical and one minute with her would have you laughing your ass off. She’s a lot of fun and one of my closest friends, but that girl is legitimately crazy. When she says she’ll kick in a door – she means it.

As I opened the door, her glance told me that she wasn’t amused. There she was: one arm strategically placed on the left hip of her sparkly black formal dress and on her face a look of disgust that I can’t even begin to describe. She was ready to go out for her big night and here I was screwing that up. For some unknown reason, I had thought it was a good idea to stay out the night before until 7 AM and then sleep the day away. This would normally be her routine as well on a Saturday, but offer up free booze and she’d scale a wall for it.

Her Formal for the Girl’s Rugby Team started in less than fifteen minutes and she was not amused that I had just opened the door in grey Calvin Klein boxer briefs and a ripped T-shirt – obviously not dressed and ready to go unless by the word Formal they meant that trailer park chic was the dress code. I didn’t even want to go because I was hung over and felt like crap, but the prospect of a top-shelf open bar for five hours really enticed me. My girlfriend didn’t mind me going with Weezie and most of our friends were going, and did I mention that it was open bar so, I thought, why not.

Weezie pushed past me and went straight for a Coors Light as she started playing with my dog. When I say that, I don’t mean to beat around the bush and try to sneak in a sexual innuendo – I mean that she was actually playing with my dog, Smokey. I tried to sit on the couch and make small talk by saying that she looked nice and that I would like a beer too, but it did no good. She gave me a look and then offered me ten minutes before it was going to start getting physical, so I got moving. Once again, when I say that I don’t mean to beat around the bush and try to sneak in a sexual innuendo – I mean that she would literally smack the shit out of me! I tried to pull myself together because I knew she wasn’t above using a slap or an elbow to the gut to motivate. She said she’d walk Smokey, to speed things along, and I asked if she would make me a sandwich since I was starving.  

“Are you kidding me? Did you just ask me to make you a sandwich?”

“You make it like I asked you to clean the toilet – it’ll keep you busy while I get ready. Come on, I’m starving.”

“You can eat when we get there – We’re gonna be late.” 

“Weezie, when you’re worth it they’ll wait.” Picture her unamused.

About fifteen minutes later, I was ready. Anyone who knows anything about me knows I was under duress to be ready in fifteen minutes. I locked the front door behind us as we headed down the steps. (This is important – I normally never carried keys or bothered to lock the door but my roommates made me swear to do it before they left for the weekend because of people coming in and taking stuff. It was a safe town and they didn’t think twice about anyone stealing the TV or DVD Player – the crime they were talking about was beer theft. Lisa used to sneak in (sometimes through the keyhole and sometimes through the front window – she is a small girl) and take the beer. She’d then blame Weezie who my roommates would scream at and accuse of lying when she tried to deny it. I knew it was Lisa but didn’t care because it was hysterical how crazy Unibrow would get. Unibrow was one of my roommates and we called him that because he was from New Jersey. I’m kidding, we called him that because he had the bushiest strip of felt impersonating two eyebrows that I have ever seen on a man’s forehead. It was as if Bert on Sesame Street had a baby with Peter Gallagher.    

As we were leaving the front porch I said “Weezie, will you put my keys in your bag? My pants are tight and I don’t want to have two distracting bulges.” She put my keys in her bag and cracked a smile so I could tell that she was loosening up a bit.

“I’m really hungry – what are they having for dinner?” I gently asked.
“Hooka, I told you they’re not having dinner – it’s passed food” She rudely responded back with.
“What? Who doesn’t serve dinner? It’s five hours long.”

“It was cheaper this way so the planning committee thought people would eat first to keep costs down”

When she said cost-effective, she really meant it. Their idea of offering something to nosh on was nachos, potato chips, and pretzels. I thought they might be putting the real food out later since this must obviously be a joke, so I started drinking to fill my stomach with something. I was going through my vodka phase and just took a tiny bit of orange juice to gently color the vodka a bit. Little did I know what a dangerous game that would be to play on an empty stomach…
“Weezie, when are they putting out the other food?”

“They have nachos right there – eat those.”

“Are you kidding me? I don’t eat with my hands remember…”

“You and that OCD bullshit again…”

“They don’t have any silverware or napkins either, how am I supposed to eat anything here?”

By seven, I was drinking heavily and dancing violently. I apparently thought it was my job when Michael Jackson’s Beat It came on, to get in the center of the dance floor screaming the words and busting out a few karate kicks. I looked good, but I’m clumsy normally so a kickin’ beat and all that alcohol did nothing to stop me from bumping into almost everyone on the dance floor.

That’s actually the last thing I remember of the Formal. I don’t have any recollection of the events for the rest of the night following that dance. My recollection is that I had a lot of rhythm and looked really hot, but some pictures have surfaced that drastically contradict that idea.

I have heard many stories of my activities from those missing hours, but since I can only hope that they are exaggerated, I refuse to accept them as fact. What I do recall is being surprised that a December night with so much snow could feel so hot. I was sweating like rice pudding left out in the sun all day.

The next thing I remember is walking down Main Street towards my apartment. It was just about five AM on the Savings Bank digital clock. I had absolutely no idea where I had been since the bars closed at two or where Weezie was. I also had no idea where my shirt and tie were for that matter as I was now only wearing my white undershirt. For some reason it also wasn’t as warm as it had been earlier. Did I mention that it was December in Upstate NY?  

When I got to my building, I tried to open the front door but it was locked and I didn’t have the key – Weezie did. Right about then having two distracting bulges didn’t seem like such a big deal after all.  

That’s when I remembered about the back fire escape that led into my bedroom. I had never actually used the fire escape before, mostly because I’m terrified of heights and partly because the slumlord that rented it to us actually said never to use the fire escape. It wasn’t really attached to the house and actually banged into the house on windy days. (The building was being torn down after the Spring Semester and was actually condemned). There was also a lip in the doorway leading into my bedroom from the fire escape about five inches high where a plate had been laid down, leaving an opening under the door so snow came into the room. It didn’t just come into my room, it accumulated. The gap was so big I was always afraid Smokey would crawl out through it.

As I mounted that frozen monstrosity that they were calling a fire escape, I somehow knew in the back of my mind that this wasn’t such a good idea but there was no other way for me to get in. It was snowing lightly, my hands were frozen, and as I forged ahead, I just couldn’t look down. As I got to the top of the ladder, I tried to steady myself and climb onto the landing but it was very slippery. Just as I thought I was on steady footing and stepped towards the door, I slipped on a patch of ice and fell off the back of the fire escape toward the snow-covered ground two stories below. Everything went black.

I have no idea how long I was out for, but there I was in the snow looking up at the fire escape and my first thought was that this was exactly the reason why the slumlord had told me never to go on that fire escape.

My second thought was that my head was pounding and something was wrong with my left shoulder. Every part of my body was fighting to let me know who was in the most pain. I think the back of my head won out, but then came the worst pain of all: I realized that I was still locked out.

Believe it or not, that second climb up the fire escape was a lot easier than the first. In addition to being drunk, now I was dizzy and in horrendous pain, but I made it up there. Slowly, I found my footing on the landing. I held onto the railing very tightly as I opened the door and rushed into the room.

Remember that lip on the door I told you about? Yep, it got me. I tripped on the lip of the door and fell forward with no time to react. I closed my eyes as the desk got closer to my face because I just couldn’t do anything else. The corner of my desk ripped through my forehead like a knife through cheese and I forgot all about the pain in my shoulder or the back of my head. Blood was gushing everywhere and Smokey was going nuts.

I couldn’t get myself off the floor partly because the pain was too intense and partly because of all the blood that was now in my eyes. I tried but I just couldn’t lift myself and Smokey’s barking and jumping around like a lunatic were not helping the situation. It was barely light outside, and I had to squint to see anything at all. I knew I should call my girlfriend because I needed to go to the hospital, but the phone was all the way through the bedroom, through the long hallway past the bathroom and then in the corner of the living room. I dragged myself through the house leaving blood everywhere as I crept to the phone and finally dialed her number.  

“You’re not gonna believe this, I’m bleeding. I fell off the fire escape, and..”

(Cutting me off) “Oh my God Is Smokey OK?”
“I’m fucking bleeding, he’s jumping all over me, HE’S FINE – I’m not OK!”

“Are you drunk?”

“Of course I’m drunk, what would I be doing on that fire escape if I was sober? It’s not even attached to the house! I need help over here. I can’t get off the floor”

“Go to bed and call me tomorrow – you’re so dramatic” and she hung up.

I think that’s the exact moment I knew that I would marry that girl.

I got Weezie’s answering machine next (she told me later that she was in bed hysterical laughing listening to me leave the message because all she could understand was me slurring “Hooka…Hooka…it’s not right…I fell off the fire escape…you have my keys…”

I finally got a friend to come over and take me to the hospital and a few hours later I was back in my bed with torn ligaments and a slight concussion after a good “talking to” from the doctor in the Emergency Room about drinking. I was so out of it that I was agreeing to his points and nodding to everything he said and didn’t realize that he was talking about me. I stupidly thought he was just making small talk about the way people drink when they’re in college.

I had just fallen asleep when I woke up to Weezie hysterical laughing as she stood above me dangling my keys. I tried to explain what happened, but she just kept laughing. She thought it was poetic justice for me leaving her alone at the Formal last night.

When my girlfriend came over, she couldn’t believe how seriously I was hurt. She thought I was just drunk and rambling on when I called her. I immediately forgave her because I was in love with her. I also immediately forgave her because no one else would take care of me and clean up my apartment and I was starving. I was heavily medicated that day but still made it out to the bars two nights later.

I wish I could say that night was a wakeup call for me and that I never got that drunk again, but that would be a lie. I had to leave school early and get an incomplete in all my classes and I looked like Mikhail Gorbachev with that big gash that went from my hairline to the top of my nose. I made scars trendy way before Harry Potter did but it didn’t go away for over two months and I had trouble with my left shoulder for much longer than that. I was in a sling and it was impossible to do anything for myself. I wish I could also say that was the last time that I got hurt while I was drunk (see broken ankle number one, broken ankle number two, St. Patrick’s Day 2009 when I fell face first into a brick wall and looked like Rhianna, etc.) As the saying goes: if you fall off the horse, you get right back on and I‘m pretty sure that applies to fire escapes too.